Resurrecting an Ancient Face of Evil

Virulent anti-Semitism is alive and well, and proliferates across the Arab world.

The Holocaust had begun to feel like ancient history, but the urgent new
focus on the Middle East reminds us all how virulent anti-Semitism lives as
a force in the world.

Just as the Nazis forged a militant fanatical hatred of Jews, Islamic
fanatics have forged a modern theory of hatred, illustrated by similar
Nazi-like depictions of Jews.

In "Peace: The Arabian Caricature: A Study of Anti-Semitic Imagery," Arieh
Stav, director of the Ariel Center for Policy Research in Tel Aviv,
documents the vicious anti-Semitic cartoons that proliferate in the Arab
world with public and official endorsement. Historically, these caricatures
are not unique to the Arab world, but what this book makes clear is that in
the Middle East today they are commonplace, generating stereotypes of evil,
fusing anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.

In the present crisis, the portrait of the Jew in the Middle East emerges as
an ugly and perverse mix of theological, moral, racial, social and political
negatives. If you think these images are pushed only by the usual suspects,
such as Syria and Iraq, think again. They proliferate across the spectrum of
our so-called allies in the coalition, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait. These caricatures are all the more powerful because they're
graphically dramatic and symbolic in countries where many people cannot
read.

Jews in the Middle East are described as a cancer in the body of the Arab world, a malignant tumor that must be surgically removed.

Jews were forced to wear a yellow patch with a six-pointed star in
"sophisticated" Europe, identifying them as vermin that had to be
exterminated. In the Middle East, the Jews of Israel are caricatured as
snakes and cockroaches, to be similarly annihilated.

Eastern European Jews were frequently described in metaphors of disease, to
be eliminated lest they infect the larger society. Jews in the Middle East
are described as a cancer in the body of the Arab world, a malignant tumor
that must be surgically removed.

Stav's book, written two years ago, illustrates how popular cartoons
generate violent attitudes toward Israel in general and Jews in particular.
Just as in Germany, where Jews over the years sometimes earned reprieve from
prejudice, Jews have enjoyed occasional protection from Muslim rulers in the
past. But it's naive to think that anti-Semitism isn't a driving force of
modern Islamist terrorism.

One of the stubborn rumors that circulated among Muslims immediately after
Sept. 11 (and among certain other Israel-bashers) was that the airplane
attacks were initiated by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. The rumor was
accompanied by the kind of lie that lent both specificity and credibility,
that 4,000 Jews who worked in the World Trade Center were warned not to show
up for work, and escaped the catastrophe.

The rumor was quickly squelched in this country when many of the dead and
missing were identified as Jews. But the rumor has the legs of "unshakable
truth" for Muslims in the streets of Cairo, Jerusalem, Riyadh, even London.
More than half a century ago, anti-Semitism was indelibly imbedded in the
psyche of the Third Reich, which led inexorably to the Holocaust. But in
recent years, the Germans have worked tirelessly to document that terrible
past and its government has spoken out boldly about the threat of Islamist
terrorism. Many Germans are humiliated that they unwittingly gave shelter to
several of the terrorists who flew the death planes.

When Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder returned home after meeting George Bush in
Washington this month after surveying the destruction of the terrorists, he
suggested that Germany is now prepared to enter a new phase in its
post-World War II history, to send its army abroad "in defense of freedom
and human rights." This is not likely to thrill millions of Europeans, but
it shows where German sentiment lies.

He expressed the "unreserved solidarity" of his government behind the United
States. He has endured criticism from the Green Party's pacifist wing and
part of his coalition, which has demanded a pause in the bombing of
Afghanistan.

Many of the Greens, however, including Joschka Fischer, the German foreign
secretary, remain mindful not only of the free world's vulnerability to the
terrorists if they are not stopped, but of the terrible treatment women,
children and minorities suffer daily at the hands of the Taliban.

These Germans have learned from their country's history and rediscovered a
conscious awareness that both words and deeds are needed to fight against
evil. They remind us all that this is no time to be a passive bystander.

This article originally appeared in The Washington Times on October 22, 2001.

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Visitor Comments: 5

(5)
Brad Ponsart,
November 6, 2011 9:21 PM

The Next Generation

I am a living witness to the effects national policies of educational curriculum can have on a generation. I was the last generation of Canadian high school students taught holocaust studies in the public school system. The impact of the imagery, of Nazis filming there fellows jesting, laughing and toasting one another over piles of their own nations civilians corpses, Hitler's propaganda machine and subsequent transportation of Jews from within and without Germany to the concentration camps, left a lasting impression.
The following year in highschool holocaust education and films were removed from the public education system in Canada. Within a couple of years James Keegstra, and Ernst Zundel, filled the vacuum left behind with holocaust denial diatribe and disinformation, and antisemitism began to quickly proliferate. They were cut off from publishing their dribble within Canada, but the internet and world wide web began, and they found a new medium through which to promulgate their hate speech. The arab world became a fresh and willing field in which to plant their seed. Bookstores in Canada began selling copies of Mein Kamf, featuring it prominently within the front display cases of their franchises, and removed any materials that would provide an antidote. Today "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," is the most popular publication worldwide, the majority of copies being sold in Muslim nations to their education systems, and being taught as an accurate historical document. Public television in these nations now focus on youth and feature cartoons vilifying Jews and teaching holocaust denial, with no noticeable dissension from within Islam. I see nothing present to stem the rise of antisemitism worldwide, rather the opposite with recent inroads into Thailand and Southeast Asia.

(4)
,
March 5, 2002 12:00 AM

I am from a muslim background. I must shamefully admit that anti-semitism exists in the muslim world. The mass of the muslim population, uneducated and bound by a superstitious adherance to religion, with the unfortunate addition of the use of propaganda by those who take advatage of the beautiful muslim faith to further their own agendas, has led most muslims to harbour a slight disapproval of every action taken by powerful members of the Jewish faith. However, the situation does not yet rival anything like that of NAZI Germany, and can be remedied with proper education.

I pray to the god that we all believe in that this disgusting stain on the face of Islam will be irradicated rather than expanded.

(3)
Beverly Corey,
November 2, 2001 12:00 AM

I am just amazed

I have to agree with this article. I am not Jewish nor do I understand much of the Jewish background. I do hope Israel will not give anymore of her territory up. I am praying for you.

(2)
Milton Evans,
October 29, 2001 12:00 AM

Excellent article on the facts about antisemitism displayed in the world of Islam today. Most Americans are completly oblivious of this fact.

(1)
Ken Noble,
October 28, 2001 12:00 AM

A recent article I read in The Jewish Press outlined how the technical know how behind most of Soddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program were being developed by German engineers and companies with the full knowedge of the German Government (even after U.S. protests) Winston Churchill was quoted as saying "I know my huns" Jews should know and never underestimate there amalakites.

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I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!